Saturday, June 30, 2012

MY TAKE ON SAUDI COUNTER-TERRORISM CO-OPERATION WITH INDIA

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 752

B.RAMAN

One should avoid over-playingthe so-called geo-strategic significance of
Saudi counter-terrorism co-operation with India in the wake of the arrest of
Zabiuddin Ansari aka Abu Jundal aka Abu Jindal aka Abu Hamza by the Saudi
authorities and his transfer to Indian custody to face interrogation and prosecution
in connection with his suspected role as one of the main co-conspirators of the
26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai by the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).

2. The transfer of Ansari by the Saudi authorities
to Indian custody despite his posing as a Pakistani national and despite
reported objection from the Pakistani authorities is a significant turning
point in Saudi counter-terrorism co-operation with India despite risks of its
impact on its relations with Pakistan and unhappiness in the Indian Muslim
community.

3. It would be wishful-thinking to attribute this
to the self-assumed increasing geo-strategic importance of India and the role
that India could play vis-à-vis Iran.

4. Despite the Saudi authorities taking a step that
could displease Pakistan, the arrest and transfer to India of Ansari do not
mean a dilution of Pakistan’s geo-strategic importance for Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan continues to be as important to Saudi Arabia as before.

5. Pakistan holds the Sunni A-bomb which Saudi
Arabia and the rest of the Sunni world might need if Iran acquires a Shia bomb.
In times of trouble, the Saudi royal family has depended on the Pakistan Army for its protection. What
Pakistan can do to protect Saudi nationals and interests, either against Iran
or against terrorism, India can never do. To nurse illusions of a geo-strategic
estrangement between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia would be unwise.

6.What the arrest and transfer of Ansari indicates
is a change in the Saudi attitude to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and not to
Pakistan as a State. Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the LET, has maintained good relations with the Saudi royal
family. He used to describe Saudi Arabia as the best Islamic State though not
an ideal Islamic State. While supporting the activities of Al Qaeda in the
Af-Pak region, he had refrained from supporting its activities in Saudi Arabia
and Yemen.

7. In return for this, Saudi Arabia had allowed the
LET to maintain an office in Saudi territory since the early 1990s. This office
used to recruit Indian Muslimsfrom
among the pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia. The members of the Muslim Defence
Force of Tamil Nadu unearthed by the Tamil Nadu Police in 2002 had been won
over and motivated by a representative of the LET based in Saudi Arabia. The
LET had also played an active role in helping the Saudi intelligence in
recruiting, training and sending jihadi
volunteers to Bosnia to fight against
the Serb security forces.

8.Till the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, the
Saudi attitude to the LET was relaxed and co-operative somewhat to the
detriment of India. The capability for spectacular acts of mass casualty terrorism
demonstrated by the LET in Mumbai and subsequent reports in the US of the LET
emerging as a collaborator and clone of Al Qaeda have caused concerns in Saudi
Arabia over the dangers of the LET acting as the Trojan Horse of Al Qaeda at a
time when the Saudi authorities have succeeded in crushing Al Qaeda in their territory.

9. The welcome Saudi co-operation with India also
reflects their concerns over the radicalisation of the Indian and Pakistani
communitiesworking and living inSaudi Arabia by the LET. The Saudi
counter-terrorism co-operation with India indicates their concern over the LET
presence in their territory, but this would not have any significant impact on
their State-to-State relations with Pakistan, which is the third largest Sunni
country of the world.

10. Unless Saudi Arabia develops its own
independent nuclear capability, Pakistan’s Sunni bomb would be indispensable
for it to deter Iran’s Shia nuclear adventurism. Let there be no
wishful-thinking about it in Indian policy-making circles and public opinion.

11. While Saudi Arabia has evidently started
marking its distance from the LET, it has not shown any signs of marking its
distance from the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which has an
independent presence in Saudi territory, reportedly motivated by C.A.M.Basheer,
the Muslim from Kerala who was the founding-president of the SIMI. While action
against Pakistan-motivated LET cadres might not cause much unhappiness in the Indian Muslim
community, action against SIMI activists with no evidence of links with
Pakistan might. This should explain the seeming Saudi ambivalence towards the
SIMI.

12. In the Ansari case, one sees the beginning of a
convergence of counter-terrorism concerns between the intelligence and security
agencies of India and Saudi Arabia with possible US blessing because of the US
interest in acting against the LET terrorists who killed six US nationals in
Mumbai. New Delhi should welcome and hail this without embarrassing the Saudi
authorities and causing them discomfiture in the eyes of the Muslim world and
the Indian Muslims.

13. We must understand the Saudi ambivalence
towards the SIMI and avoid irritating them on this issue. Let the co-operation
develop at the present pace, at a pace that is comfortable to the Saudi
authorities. ( 1-7-12)

2 comments:

It is very true that the cooperative attitude of Saudi Arabia with India shown in this case is on account of a realisation by Saudis that Terrorism is being patronised and propogated by Pakistan as a State Policy.Perhaps this realisation has been encouraged by the US to counter the terrorists.But Saudis may also be doing it in their self interest.Terrorism hurts them equally and they would not like it to emerge as an alternate seat of power which is quite possible as there are rublings in Arab society over their conservative emphasis in social matters.